It is necessary for a 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) system and its Long Term Evolution (LTE) system to support dynamic uplink/downlink subframe switching in a Time Division Duplexing (TDD) mode. Through this dynamic uplink/downlink subframe switching, d is able to meet the requirements on uplink/downlink data transmission in a network in a more accurate manner, thereby to improve a network transmission rate and reduce time delay.
In an existing LTE system, channel resources are divided in the TDD mode into a series of radio frames in a time domain, and each frame is further divided into several subframes (e.g., 10 subframes). In an existing TDD system, uplink/downlink subframe configuration in one radio frame is indicated in system information. As shown in FIG. 1, uplink/downlink subframe configuration #0 is indicated in initial system information, and prior to a certain radio frame K, the network determines, in accordance with the volume of uplink/downlink data to be transmitted, that it is required to switch configuration #0 to configuration #5 through “switching 1” so as to provide more downlink subframes. At a certain radio frame K+M, the network determines that it is required to switch configuration #5 to configuration #0 through “switching 2” so as to provide more uplink subframes.
In the existing system, it is required for a User Equipment (UE) to receive the data based on a hypothesis of a current subframe structure. For example, when a current subframe is a downlink subframe, it is hypothesized that 14 symbols may be used for the downlink reception, and when the current subframe is a special subframe, the number of the symbols for reception may be determined in accordance with special subframe configuration in high-layer signaling.
In the case of dynamic uplink/downlink subframe switching, when a certain subframe is indicated in the system information as a special subframe and this subframe is dynamically changed to a downlink subframe, anew UE may acquire the configuration of the dynamically-changed subframe. However, in order to not affect the data reception of a traditional UE, such public information as paging information and system information must be received on the basis of a special subframe format, resulting in a decrease in a resource utilization rate of the new UE during the data reception.